Speaking of decks..I do miss decks so much. It set a bar that is now gone. I help book DJs here sometimes and it is so annoying how these guys with zero skills come in and make diva demands and tell me they "know what they are doing" when they tell me how the house EQs should be set..lol. Hate hate hate those guys, and we have a ton of no talent Fullsail kids with laptops masquerading as DJs here right now.

Simple solution: if they suck, don't book them again.

I used to be anti the whole computer DJing thing but as the products have gone through a couple of generations I've come to really enjoy what Serato especially has to offer. People in a bar/club shouldn't be concerned over what method the DJ is using, only that it is well done and appropriate for the surroundings. The issue with young guys is often that they've had access to thousands of tracks (generally with little regard to audio quality also) so they have not developed the level of craft that a DJ who used to buy vinyl would have.. Vinyl was expensive so DJs generally had to be very frugal, ruthless in what they would buy - so the whole selection aspect of their music was generally much, more more fine-tuned. Vinyl taught DJs about scarcity of product, how to hustle a floor and finding a balance between fresh and familiar (all relative to the venue/scene mind you) which if very uncommon in DJs who have access to everything and had little time to learn about a *quality funnel* for their music. Their answer to tricky situations or warm-ups is simply playing hits - and there are so many you can do it all night... so the finesse of having a DJ get a night going appropriately, slowly getting people into the mood and complimenting or leading the changing vibe of the night is almost non-existent unless someone is particularly talented at DJing.

Digital DJing doesn't preclude any of this happening but it's just worth realising a big chunk of the learning path has changed because of it, not least also because it's rarer for young guys to be mentored in their DJing at clubs which used to be commonplace across the world.